Ohio State runs a drill in practice called "war rebounding," which is about as delicate as it sounds.

As the NCAA tournament begins, some coaches are turning back the clock and embracing simple methods of training, motivation and development. Ben Cohen takes a look.

Coaches cover the basket with a bubble so the shots can't go in, thus forcing the defense to battle the offense for every loose ball. The torture lasts until the defense claims a certain number of rebounds, or head coach Thad Matta has mercy on the panting, sweating souls of his players. The drill's maximum length: about 45 minutes.

"It's a dogfight," said Ohio State guard Lenzelle Smith Jr.

As ardent basketball fans know, the sport is suddenly awash in new technologies, tools and metrics. As the NCAA tournament begins in earnest Thursday, many players will be opening their iPads to watch video clips of their opponents, some broken down to types of play as specific as the pick and roll.

But coaches at high-profile programs are not completely buried in spreadsheets. In fact, some of them are turning back the clock and embracing simple, straightforward methods of training, motivation and skill development that would make Dr. James Naismith feel right at home.

The weight room for No. 6-seed Butler looks like a scene out of the 1920s. Players lug 15-pound medicine balls around, squat with their thighs parallel to the floor and bench-press 185-pound barbells, a routine strength coach Jim Peal calls the "cornerstone" of the program. "We're not out there chasing the newest fad that might not be here next week," he said.

The beefed-up Bulldogs have made the tournament six out of the past seven years, including two NCAA finals, despite a lack of top-tier recruits.

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"We do everything in the new school, if you would call it," said Butler coach Brad Stevens, a 36-year-old devotee of advanced statistics. "But I also believe in some old-school brute strength."

In an era when many sports teams employ modern-minded psychologists to help the players clear their mental pathways, others are clinging to simpler methods. Michigan, the No. 4 seed in the South Region, employs assistant coach Bacari Alexander, a former Harlem Globetrotter who once performed the troupe's confetti-in-the-bucket routine. One of his jobs is to pump up players with pre-game speeches that involve everything from construction hardhats to a nutcracker (for the despised Buckeyes).

Alexander began a speech last season by lying on the locker-room floor. He shouted at the surrounding Michigan players that they had been allowing Ohio State to walk all over them. "Are you going to lie down or get up?" he asked.

"Get up!" the players yelled.

Duke, the Midwest Region's No. 2 seed, has a more concrete method of motivation. The Blue Devils measure conditioning with the fitness test from the NBA combine: 185-pound bench press, vertical jump, three-quarter-court sprint and lane-agility run. The player in the best shape each year is rewarded with a garish leather belt specifically designed by Top Rope Belts in North Carolina to resemble a professional wrestling accessory. "If you're going to do a belt," Duke strength coach Will Stephens said, "you have to make it look really nice."

The Buckeyes, members of the bruising Big Ten conference, also perform an exercise called "eight-man passing" that consists of eight guys sprinting the court for 35 seconds while whipping around two balls that can't touch the floor. "Eight-man passing does suck," admitted Ohio State guard Aaron Craft.

ENLARGE

Ohio State runs a drill in practice called "war rebounding," which is about as delicate as it sounds. Above, Aaron Craft of the Ohio State Buckeyes lunges for the ball.
Getty Images

It seems to be working for Craft and his teammates: Ohio State's turnovers crept up to 11.5 per game last season as the Buckeyes moved away from the drill. But with Matta emphasizing eight-man passing this season, turnovers are down to 10.3 per game, and Ohio State's players credit their recent eight-game winning streak and No. 2 seed in the West Region to improved passing.

Then there's Wisconsin, a No. 5 seed in the tournament, which plays a brand of basketball that never has been known as state-of-the-art. The Badgers don't bamboozle team with tricks or gimmicks. What they do is slow things down, protect the ball and turn opposing offenses into horror films.

Badgers guard Ben Brust described "partner passing," a typical drill the team runs at the beginning of practice. It is, he says, pretty much exactly that. "You get a partner and practice passing," Brust said. "It sounds simple and dumb."

Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, 65, said he prides himself on stressing "what a lot of other teams don't bother with." When visiting high-school coaches ask him why he likes such an unsophisticated drill, he doesn't care. "I'm a basic guy," he said.

Ryan isn't even comfortable with the term "passing drills." He calls them "passing and catching drills," he said, because the catch is just as critical as the pass.

Ryan, for one, insists that his emphasis on the elementary stuff is progressive in its own way. "If you make a better pass than you were making last week," he said, "I think that's innovation."

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